BY BRO. F. W. KRACHER, OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN, STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

CONCLUDED.

(As before stated, the
question with regard to the old German Stonemasons is, whether or not they
were Freemasons, and opinions are divided. For the benefit of discussion we
venture to offer this conjecture--we do not call it a theory--that they stood
midway between the Guilds and the Freemasons. If we may believe Findel and
others, the Stonemasons seem to have been in possession of the first Degree of
Masonry, or the-substance of it--though one may hesitate to accept all the
details, as given by Findel as to their ceremonies of initiation. Whether they
had anything more--the Hiramic Legend, for example--has never been
established. Perhaps they were men employed by the Cathedral Builders, and
entrusted by them with the first principles of Masonry--as many think was the
case with Egyptian Masons in respect to the Mysteries--and as such continued
to exist and work even after the parent Order declined. At any rate, we shall
be glad to have the Brethren examine this conjecture for what there is in it,
putting it to the severest kind of test in behalf of the truth about the
German Stonemasons.--The Editor.)

27. A master having charge of
a book of the order shall take care of it according to his vow to the order.
He must not copy it nor have it copied by someone else, he must not give it or
lend it to any person, so that the book may always remain with the craft as
the workers decided. But, if a member of the order should need to know a
paragraph or two, these may be given to him by the master in writing. The
master shall arrange to have the rules read aloud to all workers in the shops
once every year.

28. If the question arise
whether any member under complaint shall be expulsed, the master of the
district shall not act independently. Two other masters who are in possession
of the written rules, and who are empowered by their brethren, shall be
summoned so that the council is made up of three. To this council shall be
added the workers of the shop in which the trouble arose. The decision of the
three masters, supported by the majority of the workers shall then be accepted
by all the craftsmen.

29. In case two or more
masters of the order should quarrel over affairs not directly connected with
stone-masonry, this quarrel shall not be brought before any other court but
that of the order, which shall decide in accordance with their understanding.
The decision must, however, be submitted to the cities in which the quarrel
took place, for approval.

30. That the ritual of the
order may be properly observed with divine worship and other necessary
ceremonies, each master shall donate to the order one "gulden" at his
initiation. Hereafter he is to pay four "blappart" (small silver coin)
annually into the treasury of the order. Each craftsman also pays four "blapparts";
the same every apprentice after finishing his term.

31. Each master and workman
belonging to the order and employed in a shop, shall be in possession of a
savings-box. Into this box shall be dropped one penny each week. The money is
to be collected by the master and handed to the order once a year. With it
shall be paid the church services and other expenses of the order.

32. All masters who have such
boxes but in whose shops there is kept no book-(of account) of the order,
shall hand it to the master who has the books once a year, and a
church-service is to follow. If a master or craftsman dies in a shop where no
book is kept, this must be reported to the next master who has a book of the
order. After being informed of such a death, he shall have a mass read for the
benefit of the departed soul, and the master and craftsmen who had worked with
the deceased are to pay for it.

33. Any expense caused to a
master or craftsman by the order shall be refunded out of the order's
treasury; may it be little or much. If any one were to be brought before court
in affairs pertaining to the order, or if one were thereby thrown into need,
all masters and craftsmen should aid him in accordance with their vow to the
order.

34. In case a master or
craftsman becomes ill, or has to discontinue the work and is, thereby,
confronted by need, he shall receive assistance from those masters having
charge of the order's treasury. The one receiving help must, however, promise
to repay all money received after his recovery. In case of death, so much of
the clothing and other articles left behind, shall be sold, as is necessary to
cover the debt.

This is the regulation book
of the watchers (foremen) and craftsmen.

35. No master shall employ a
craftsman who has induced a woman to adultery, or who leads an immoral life
with women; who does not go to confession at least once a year as the church
prescribes, or who has the evil reputation of gambling his clothes away.

36. If any workman ask
unnecessarily for a leave of absence, he shall forfeit his privilege for
another leave for one whole year. This applies to workmen in the shops and
also such employed on the buildings.

37. If any master employs a
traveling craftsman and wishes to discharge him, he may do so on a Saturday or
the evening of pay-day, so that the man may be able to travel on. The same
shall be done by a craftsman who wishes to leave. This rule does not hold good
if just cause was given by either side.

38. No craftsman shall
approach any one else for work except it be the master of the job or the
overseer, and never without his master's or the overseer's knowledge.

Regulation of the Servants
(Common Laborers.)

39. A master shall not employ
any laborer who has not been born in wedlock. He must, therefore, endeavor to
inform himself accordingly by asking the man whether his father and mother
were really and truly married.

40. No builder or master
shall make any laborer, who is still serving as an apprentice, a "parlierer"
(watchman.)

41. No builder or master
shall make any laborer a "parlierer" although he may have served his term as
an apprentice, but who has not at least traveled one year.

42. If one has served as
assistant to a mason and comes to a master, in order to learn from him the
craft, he shall not be accepted as an apprentice unless he is to serve as such
an assistant for three years.

43. No builder or master
shall employ anyone as laborer and raise him to a finished apprentice within
less than five years.

44. Should it happen that an
apprentice leaves his master during his term without just cause, that
apprentice shall not be employed by any other master. No fellow craftsman
shall support him or associate with him in any way unless he can show
testimonial that he has served the regular time and met all the requirements
of the master. No one shall buy himself free before the time, unless he
entered into marriage with the consent of his master, or who has some other
just cause which may force him or the master to do so.

45. Should a laborer think
that he is not treated rightly by his master for whom he is working, he may
bring complaint in the place where he is at work, so that he may receive
instruction and the wrong may be righted in accordance with the rules of the
order.

46. Each master who has a
book (permission) from the district of Strassburg, shall pay each Christmas a
half gulden into the treasury of Strassburg. And this shall be done so long
until the debt is paid which stands against that treasury.

47. Any master who has a book
and whose work has completed so that he cannot employ his helpers any longer,
shall send the book and all the money which belongs to the order to the
builder at Strassburg.

48. On St. Marc's day, in the
year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and fifty nine, four weeks after
Easter, the following was decided upon in the meeting at Regensburg: The
builder Jost Dotzinger, of Worms, in charge of the cathedral of "Our Lady" at
Strassburg, shall be the highest judge of our order. The same shall be true in
the case of his successors at the same work. (A similar decision was given
before at Spyr, at Strassburg, and on the ninth day of April, in the year
fourteen hundred and sixty four again at Spyr.) Master Lorenz Spenning, of
Vienna, shall be the highest authority at Vienna for the whole country.

The present masters at
Strassburg, Vienna, and Cologne, these three, or their successors shall
constitute the highest authority of the order. They cannot be displaced
without good and just cause.

49. This is the district
which belongs to Strassburg: All the country above the Mosel; the country of
the Franks down to the Thuringian forest, and Babenburg to the monastery near
Eystetten; from Eystetten to Ulm, from Ulm to Augsburg, to the Adelburg near
land of the Welsh (Flance); Meisen, Thuringia, Saxony, Frankfurt, and Hesse,
and also Swabia shall be obedient to him.

To the district of Master
Lorenz Spenning, builder of the cathedral St. Stephan, at Vienna, belong:
Lambach, Styria, Werckhusen, Hungaria (along the Danube.)

Master Steffen Hurder,
builder of St. Vincent at Bern, shall control the cantons.

Master Conrad, of Cologne,
builder of the cathedral at that place, and all his successors, shall have
charge over the rest of the shops which are now in the order or may, in a
future period, be admitted to the same

50. Any master, parlierer,
and fellow-craftsman, acting contrary to a secret or recorded paragraph, shall
be called before such a council and reprimanded, if the complaint is founded
on good authority. Any punishment meted out must be obediently complied with,
as the vow demands. If one disregards the call without a good reason, he shall
be fined in absentia. If he refuses to pay he may be brought before a secular
or ecclesiastical court which shall decide what ought to be done to him.

51. Whoever wants to join
this order, must vow to keep all rules which are written in this book or may
be added in the future. Should the emperor, king, prince or any other
authority, rightly or wrongly, object to his belonging to the order, he may
act in such a manner that no harm can come to him. Any business with the order
can be arranged thru fellow-workmen who are members of the order.

52. If it is every
Christian's duty to work at his soul's salvation, it is much more so a duty of
every master and craftsman whom the almighty God has endowed with the ability,
to erect churches and other buildings and, thereby, to earn their living.
Thankfulness should fill their hearts, and prompted by their Christian nature
they should endeavor to increase the divine services, and by doing so earn
their soul's salvation. Therefore, in honor of God Almighty, his worthy mother
Mary, all the saints, and especially in honor of the holy four, and for the
benefit of the souls of all persons who belong to this order or may join in
the future, we, as stone-masons, have agreed upon these rules for ourselves
and all our descendants: We will have celebrated one mass every year at the
time dedicated to the holy four, namely in the munster at Strassburg, and
there in the Chapel of Our Lady. This mass shall be one for our souls with all
the ceremonies belonging to it.

53. This has been decided
upon on the ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand four
hundred and sixty four, in the representative meeting at Spyr, etc." (Then
follows the names of the masters of the different delegations and their
signatures and subscriptions. )

THE
LANDMARKS OF MASONRY

BY BRO. SILAS H. SHEPHERD,
WISCONSIN

CONCLUDED.

(The study of the Landmarks
of Masonry, by Brother Shepherd, is a piece of real Masonic Research, and is
valuable as showing the confusion that obtains among the several Grand
Jurisdictions in this country in the matter of Landmarks. In this connection,
the Brethren might re-read the article on the subject, suggested by an essay
of the late Brother T.S. Parvin, in the February issue of The Builder. It is
interesting to note how many of the Grand Lodges adopt the list of landmarks
as formulated by Dr. Mackey, and as interesting to observe how many are
content with the unwritten law of the Order. For ourselves, if required to
state what we believe to be the real Landmarks of Masonry, it would be after
this fashion:--The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, the Moral Law,
the Golden Rule, and the Hope of a Life Everlasting.--The Editor.)

Maine-- Maine has no
legislation as to what landmarks are. They follow Josiah Drummond's ideas.

Maryland-- Maryland has no
list of landmarks. Art. II Constitution of 1906 defines the duty of the Grand
Lodge; among other duties is one "to preserve and maintain the Ancient
Landmarks." Article XXIX reads: "In all cases not particularly provided for in
this Constitution, the Grand Lodge shall adhere to, and be governed by the
Ancient Rules and Regulations of Masonry."

Massachusetts-- Massachusetts
has never adopted any list of landmarks. They "feel safer in cultivating a
spirit of reverence for the ancient customs and practices of the Order" than
in attempting to define the Landmarks.

Michigan-- Michigan has no
list of landmarks. The following is taken from the preface of the Michigan
Blue Book of 1911: "The first place in the volume-- the place of honor--has
been assigned to the "Ancient Charges and Regulations" not because they are,
in form, binding on us, but because they are universally recognized as the
beginning and basis of all the "written law" of the Craft; and also because
they embody many of those "Ancient Landmarks" which give "metes and bounds" to
the Rules and Regulations of Symbolic Masonry."

Minnesota-- Minnesota has
adopted Mackey's twenty-five landmarks.

Mississippi-- The Old Charges
and Regulations of 1723 are printed as a part of the Constitution of 1903.
Frederic Speed enumerates eight landmarks which are sub-divided into many
sections and were found among the papers of the late P. G. M. Giles M. Hillyer.

Missouri-- Missouri has no
list of landmarks. Bro. John D. Vincil, conceded to be one of the best posted
men on jurisprudence, disclaimed knowing what the landmarks were.

Montana-- Montana has the
customary exception to its powers, viz: "Provided, always, that the ancient
landmarks of the order will be held inviolate." Montana has no list of
landmarks.

Nebraska-- Nebraska has never
decided on any particular list of landmarks.

Nevada-- Nevada has a list of
39 landmarks which were adopted in 1872.

New Hampshire-- New Hampshire
never officially defined what the landmarks are.

New Jersey-- New Jersey has a
list of 10 landmarks which were adopted in 1903. New Jersey Proceedings of
1903 contains an interesting report on these 10 landmarks by the Committee on
Jurisprudence.

New Mexico-- New Mexico has
adopted Mackey's 25 landmarks.

New York-- "The Ancient
Landmarks are those principles of Masonic belief, government, and polity which
are the only part of Masonic Law or rule that may never be altered or
disturbed, and such of them as are lawful to be written are usually, but not
wholly, engrafted in a written Constitution." (Const. G. L. of N. Y. 1913.) On
page 63 and 64 of the same book are the landmarks as defined by P. G. M.
Joseph D. Evans, 10 in number.

North Carolina-- North
Carolina has no list of landmarks, nor legislation defining them.

North Dakota-- North Dakota
has no legislation defining or enumerating landmarks. They include in their
Constitution the Ancient Charges and Regulations.

Ohio-- The Ohio Code states
that "the Old Charges contain the fundamental laws" which is practically
giving them sanction as landmarks. The Old Charges are a part of the Code.

Oklahoma-- At the Feb. 1915
Communication of the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, they acknowledged and
practically adopted the 25 landmarks of Mackey.

Oregon-- Oregon has adopted
Mackey's 25 landmarks.

Pennsylvania-- The Ahiman
Rezon contains the following on landmarks: "The Grand Lodge is the supreme
Masonic authority except that it cannot change, alter or destroy the Ancient
Landmarks." "The Past Grand Masters shall be regarded as the conservators of
the ancient usages, customs and Landmarks." No landmarks are enumerated.

Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations-- Rhode Island has no list of landmarks. The following is from the
preamble to the Constitution of 1897: "Every Grand Lodge has inherent power
and authority to make local ordinances and new regulations, for its own
benefit and the good of Masonry in general--provided, always, that the ancient
landmarks be carefully preserved."

South Carolina-- South
Carolina has adopted Mackey's list of 25 landmarks.

South Dakota-- South Dakota
Constitution of 1912 states that the Landmarks as defined by Dr. Mackey have
binding force on South Dakota Masons.

Tennessee-- Tennessee has a
list of 15 landmarks which are almost identical with those enumerated by
Simons

Texas-- Chapter 2, Article 1,
Sec. 4, of the Texas Code reads: "The Book of Constitutions of Masonry
originally prepared by Dr. Anderson, approved A.D. 1723, contains the system
of ancient laws and customs of the Craft, and is recognized as binding on
points where this Constitution is silent; the old charges therein shall be
appended entire hereto." This is the only light we can obtain on what the
Grand Lodge of Texas thinks the landmarks are.

Utah-- Utah holds the "Old
Charges of a Freemason" to be the landmarks. Christopher Diehl, a well known
correspondence writer for years, had a list of landmarks which he submitted to
the Grand Lodge of Utah; but they were never adopted.

Vermont-- Vermont adheres to
the list of 25 landmarks of Mackey.

Washington-- Washington
Constitution of 1913, Sec. 13, says: The action of Freemasons in the Grand
Lodge and in their Lodges, and in their individual capacity is regulated and
controlled 1. By Ancient Landmarks, and other unwritten laws of Masonry. 2. By
Written- Constitutions, and general or special legislation. 3. By Usages,
Customs and judicial action."

"Sec. 14 Landmarks.--The
Ancient Landmarks include those principles of Masonic government and polity
which should never be altered or disturbed."

No landmarks are enumerated.

West Virginia-- West Virginia
has a list of 7 landmarks, a report on landmarks for the information of the
brethren is given first place in the West Virginia Masonic Text Book. It
contains lists by Mackey, Simons, Morris and Pike.

Wyoming-- Wyoming Grand
Lodge considers the landmarks too deep a subject to comment on and does not
attempt an enumeration of them.

Wisconsin-- Wisconsin has no
legislation defining or enumerating the landmarks, but gives Mackey's 25 in
code for their information of the brethren.

hold the old charges to
contain the landmarks. Those having list of landmarks of their own and the
number are Connecticut ...............Lockwood's 19 Kentucky
.....................Grant's 54 New Jersey ...........................10
Nevada ...............................39 Tennessee
............................15 West Virginia .........................7

The others all hold that the
landmarks are the most important and fundamental law of Masonry, but do not
consider a list made by any man or body of men sufficiently accurate to apply
to them.

In concluding this
compilation we can hardly refrain from expressing a thought or so which has
forced itself upon us.

The live questions of Masonic
Jurisprudence are most all affected by the views entertained in regard to
landmarks; take for example the question of physical qualification. To those
who hold the view of Mackey, Lockwood, Simons and others that it is a landmark
it appears quite different from the view taken by those who hold that the only
landmarks are the fundamental principles of Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood
of Man.

We can hardly grasp the logic
of why the physical qualification should be deemed a landmark and leave to the
local custom column the rule that an entered apprentice serve seven years
before being passed. They were both the necessary rules of an operative Craft
and the need of a longer apprenticeship would appear to be greater than the
strict conformity.

Again the prerogatives of a
Grand Master largely stand or fall on interpretation of the landmarks, as do
also our recognition of other Grand Bodies.

We might make many
comparisons and comments but believe that the landmarks, like the history and
symbolism of Masonry, must be left mostly to individual interpretation.

For those who wish to read on
landmarks and have not already done so we would refer them to:

AT a guess I suppose there are easily in excess of
one hundred million dollars worth of Masonic temples in this United States. Do
you doubt it? Figure it up for yourself. Take your own locality. Compare the
ratio of the national population with the total number of persons in your
vicinity. Do the same with the amount invested in local sites and buildings
and their equipment. Appraise the property on its present sales prospects.
What are your findings? Is the above figure really not a modest estimate?

Evidently then, the subject is a most important
one from mere financial consideration alone. But to take care of what we have
already built is only a part of the problem involved. Not a Masonic paper
giving free account of individual lodge and Grand lodge activities fails to
tell in nearly every issue of building operations. They grow apace.

Look over the proceedings of your Grand Lodge
wherever it may be. Note the laying of cornerstones and the dedications. Why,
right here, within an hour's ride on the street cars from where these words
are written, six new buildings are actually in prospect of being added to or
substituted for those now occupied by the fraternity.

With all this buoyant liveliness throughout the
land in Masonic building developments we might expect to find on hand an
abundant stock of information readily obtainable about every angle of Masonic
temple architecture and finance. Such is not the case. Few know anything about
it and fewer still tell what they know.

One far-sighted Mason of high official standing
did order that plans should be deposited at his office of every structure
built by the brethren under him. It was a wise thought. But it was never taken
seriously to heart. Few complied with his request.

Nor have I heard of the same demand being made
elsewhere although the plans, the stockholders' regulations, the directors'
by-laws, sundry characteristic annual reports, copies of charters, details of
building expenses and of maintenance charges - these and other similar items
easily occur to me as being very useful in finding a safe path for those who
are new to the road. And few there be who in the natural course of events
build more than one Masonic temple.

Many collect postcards of Masonic temples. Never
have I found or even heard of any ascertaining temple costs and overhead
expenses as diligently.

Inspectors critically follow the "work" and
hesitate not to comment thereon. Alas, there are no masonic inspectors to
bring in like fashion to temple managers the combined building knowledge of
the Craft.

Not for the world would I urge that we start an
unseemly wrangle about whether the executive officers of a Grand body should
or should not go, or how far they may properly penetrate, into the private
affairs of their subordinate branches. Some of the Brethren are touchy on
these points. It does indeed bear tenderly on democratic independence and if
the officialism became more pronounced it might by many be resented. As long
as dues are paid, and while ceremonies are conducted in accordance with the
prescribed forms, there is no excuse, say they, for further intrusion. Maybe
so. Yet, after all, how many a sad termination of a too impetuous enterprise
could have been avoided had the planners thereof been fortified by the dearly
bought experience of others.

Furthermore, let me venture upon only a few of the
comments that come to mind of the less complimentary aspects of temple
building. Perhaps we may not then be so inclined to stand jealously upon the
strict etiquette of lodge independence - much as I too esteem it. After a
failure or two has been examined there is the more tendency to agree with the
provision for some quickening and stiffening of an official oversight.

Does any lodge today lose out by negligence in the
matter of bonds or insurance without everyone of us feeling shame and
resentment ? And supervision is in many directions being officially exerted to
check up existing conditions in these two particulars. Perhaps official
superintendence could go further and with profit to all concerned.

Do not guess that this is any hasty assumption.
There is a monumental building well known to thousands of the Craft where the
name "Masonic" is blazoned on the sign of a saloon at the ground floor.
Another "Masonic" building long had a series of theatrical exhibitions
presented in its auditorium that were the despair of the local fraternity. The
foregoing troubles were doubtless due to the drawing of unwise leases or in
some similar manner losing the direct government of the premises.

One Masonic building has shown an excess expense
per cubic foot of construction away by far over any other. This is a matter of
architectural temerity that was in due course unpleasantly adjusted by the
bond-holders.

A Masonic building hopefully erected as a dividend
producer to serve a worthy charity has been a load upon the fraternity that
seems as doubtful of soon being lifted as was Sinbad the Sailor from the
shoulders of the Old Man of the Sea. This misfortune was occasioned by an
excess of faith not ballasted by ample financial resources, but will probably
be ultimately successful if given plenty of time and unremitting support.

There are other aspects of course. These are but a
few typical and widely separated cases.

Of the devotion and self-sacrifice of the brethren
in backing up building enterprises too much cannot be said. In one city they
have I am told taxed themselves for $12 a year apiece as lodge dues. Surely
the best of temples is deserved by them. At another city the brethren are
paying $8 a year dues to their lodge to meet the expenses of a new home.

And in one more case I recall that the bodies
Masonic from Blue Lodge to Shrine all pooled their funds, pledged their joint
revenues, put the curb to all their banquets, and at last reports were
emerging rapidly from the depths of a big debt.

Evidently there are ways and other ways of getting
at the subject and of making a practical and a profitable study of it. Fain
would I linger with this financial side of the discussion but the topic is
ever a delicate one and I feel barred from entering too minutely into its
consideration. Space, also, is precious and therefore I must be brief.

Books on theatres, churches and office buildings,
are found in almost every public library. Our United States Government has
thoroughly classified and tabulated its public buildings and their costs in
published form. Volumes similarly prepared on Masonic temples are rarities as
unknown as the dodo or the roc or the unicorn. So here I have jotted down a
few hints about certain angles of the situation that may help those who have
occasion to probe into the question, and there is really no telling when the
trouble may infect any one' neighborhood.

You will of course get an architect and it is best
to get him early, and the best is never too good. Manifestly he should be a
member of the Craft. There are many things to be discussed that cannot very
well be freely talked over unless the architect is one of you. This point is
all the more pertinent with the large undertaking. Sometimes before you get to
the architect there are a few items that can be considered.

And first as to location: If you put your temple
in the center of your town you will pay that much more for the site. But then
it does get the eye of your fellow citizens and of visitors. It is
pre-eminently an advertisement and should be prominently and favorably so.
Everybody who "belongs" to the downtown temple is then equally treated as to
the location and his travels thereto. Erect your temple in the outskirts and
then some brother may have to come into the city from the suburbs and be
forced to travel from the one extreme to the other end, to go all over town in
fact to get to lodge.

When the far-off brother has a few neighbors as
fellow members you may some day find that these long distance brethren are
filing an application for another lodge to be instituted nearer to their
homes. This can be a very proper thing to do but if there is a pressing
mortgage on your lodge building you perhaps will not approve of their action
so warmly as you would if the loan had been liquidated before they had made a
move to leave you.

But don't rashly assume offhand that being in the
center of town necessarily builds up your lodge the more rapidly or that a
downtown location is on that account a winner by reason of central
attractions.

Let us examine a little history in such matters as
they affect a certain city where the facts are within ready reach. Looking
over the records for several years I find that lodges in the center of the
city are paying less rent than those elsewhere but they also grow less
rapidly. One chapter four miles from the main business section shows three
times the growth in membership during the past six years over either of the
two downtown Royal Arch bodies.

Mind you I am not in this discussion considering
particularly whether large or small bodies are best or whether rates of growth
slow or fast are most desirable in the long run. I have heard the argument
that a Masonic temple should be given a central location because among other
reasons it will there attract a larger attendance and the bodies will build up
the more quickly. So far I have failed to find sufficient evidence to prove
this contention. In fact I am inclined to believe the growth of lodges depends
upon other factors to a large extent.

As to determining the rents for Masonic temples,
you can find numerous varieties. One temple management has a cubic-foot
specification so that occupancy of certain rooms having higher ceilings
automatically increases the rents when these particular rooms are in use. A
rent based upon relative areas, a square-foot rule, would be an obvious
expedient and is probably common. The former case is somewhat rare I dare say
but is by no means lacking of ingenuity in seeking an equitable solution of an
awkward problem.

There are also to be found stipulations; e. g.
that when a certain number of hours have elapsed during a communication an
additional charge is made because you are then overlapping what is deemed a
regular meeting; and again where a specified number of regular meetings are
alloted the tenant with a charge for all in excess thereof.

As to the amounts collected as rents they run up a
long range. The highest rent so far heard of by me was about $2,000 per year
for a lodge room and the necessary ante-rooms. As might be expected there were
large requirements in the number of members and of meetings in this instance.

A Commandery demands plenty of locker facilities
and often has a Red Cross room as well as the Chamber of Reflection. On this
basis the rented area is large and the rent rises proportionately. If this
equipment is used by but one or two bodies there is standing idle a big space
for a considerable part of the year. This can be as much as a fourth or fifth
of your building. Should you figure your rents in the ratio of building space
allowance the amount soars for the Commandery. This circumstance is mentioned
because rents easily become matters of argument and their adjustment is seldom
equally acceptable to all parties.

A Chapter with the building equipped peculiarly
for its uses will also find that the rent seems disproportionate to what may
be charged for Lodges in the same structure. In all probability this variation
may be made worse to the superficial observer because the number of Chapters
is probably much less than that of the Lodges meeting in that building. Every
night in the week may be assigned to a Lodge meeting in the temple of a large
city or town while but two or three might be used by Chapters.

Special facilities must have an influence on the
rent if you try fairly to fix the expenses. Therefore I am led to suggest to
builders of temples that simplification is very desirable. Can the work of the
Commandery not all be done in the one room? Many of the asylums have suitable
stages capable of being more freely employed for any and all purposes that are
now demanding additional rooms. Obviously I cannot discuss this question as
thoroughly in print as I could well desire. My Templar brethren will
understand and allow for this restraint upon me.

Somewhat the same thing could be said of the
Chapter room. Any ceremony performed outside the main room is ritualistically
wrong I humbly venture to aver. It cannot edify those who see it not. And I
fear it cannot but lack the restraining control of the principal officers who
for the time being like the rest of the audience are kept in the dark as to
what is transpiring.

That all the brethren should see what is going on
is I believe a fundamental requirement in temple planning. In several cases as
I have here intimated it can be bestowed by a suitable use of the stage or
platform with such additional accessories as may be built into and be a part
of the main room.

Rhode Island bars the stereopticon, I am told.
Certainly I never saw it used in my visits there. However I cannot say that
the crudely painted canvas or "carpet" that is often used in lodges is any
better than the blotchy colored slides that may take their place. Either is
deplorable. A higher standard of excellence is desirable. May I not say so
even more emphatically ?

Why not build in these symbols? Make them an
integral part of your Lodge and Chapter interiors. Paint them in befitting
beauty on the walls or carve them prominently and permanently where they can
be shown the initiate with pride. Surely not in darkness but with
enlightenment ought they to be appropriately presented and thus impressively
and clearly displayed.

Palestine Lodge of Detroit has reproduced for
itself the Chapter room of the famous cathedral at York. Its fine beams and
lofty columns, its built-in organ, its ample scope with its compactness and
convenience are admirably contrived and accomplished.

The Lodge rooms in the temple in New York City are
also very charmingly designed and executed as are those at Philadelphia and
elsewhere.

Appended are some references to published
descriptions of Masonic temples and Shrine auditoriums found in leading
architectural and building trade journals.

Masonic temple at Washington, D. C., AMERICAN
ARCHITECT AND BUILDING NEWS, April 15, 1908.

This list is by no means exhaustive but is fairly
representative. A complete showing is desirable but will take more of my time
than can just now be devoted to it.

I am also reminded that these observations are
extending to considerable length, much more so than I had intended. Yet the
subject is a prolific one and of it much could be said. There comes to mind
temples whose acoustics are poor, where the ventilation and heating has not
been deemed to have, as it undoubtedly does have, a vital influence upon the
hearing excellencies of an auditorium. There are lodge rooms where the
lighting is execrable. There is one in particular where the officer most
frequently heard must constantly face masses of light in the direct line of
vision. Nothing can be more irritating. Of halls poorly provided for entrance
and exit there are not a few. But the majority are noble of appearance and
conducive to the dignified presentation of our ceremonies.

Of the financing of temples little has been said.
Much could have been recited. It is indeed an important undertaking Wise are
they who take no step therein without the advice of a competent attorney, and
remembering always that corporation law and realty practice are specialties in
which many lawyers and businessmen are not adepts. Care is essential therefore
at every step. Leave nothing to chance and take nothing for granted.

----o----

HOW
BEAUTIFUL

How beautiful the thought
that men

From the tools of their
employ

Could make them teach the
grander things

That gave them highest joy, -

That gave the substance of
all good,

That made life's duties
plain,

That gave the world a
brotherhood

And forged its golden chain.

How beautiful, as we turn
back

The written scroll of time

To find that need made common
cause

For things the most sublime,
-

The things that lighten every
load,

That bring to life a joy

Unknown save where these
"working tools"

Gave men their chief employ.

How beautiful to know that
while

Religions cannot save

Nor creeds, nor yet beliefs,
nor all

That may the soul enslave,

That men, in guilds, most
practical

And to each other true

Have set the pace for all the
world

What it should be and do.

How beautiful, in this our
day

When the operative is past,

That there remains with us
the gold

Their labors have amassed, -

The priceless wealth of
toilers true

Merged in a brotherhood

That emulated through the
years

Will mean man's greatest
good.

- L. B. Mitchell, Michigan.

----o----

THE
ASCENDING SCALE

Symbolically toward the skies

The Masonic temple rises,

And we patronize its courts
to prize

And win still more its
prizes.

- L.B.M.

----o----

THE FOUNT
OF YOUTH

Brother, you will never,
never be

Nearer the fount of perpetual
youth

Than you are right here in
Masonry, -

Brotherly love, relief and
truth.

- L.B.M.

ANOTHER
VIEW OF "THE GREAT WORK"

BY BRO. T.M. STEWART, OHIO

NOT in the spirit of hostile
criticism, but in the kindly spirit of one Brother to another, I wish to refer
to the criticism of the book, entitled, "The Great Work," in the June number
of The Builder. I have not only read, but carefully studied, "The Great Work,"
and the other two books of the Harmonic series, and I do not, after a careful
reading of the criticism referred to, find myself sharing the critic's views
as illustrated in the comments made on the two short extracts quoted.

In the first place, let me
call attention to the mistake of confusing the title of the book with the
author's work as writer or editor. The treatise is characterized as "more
curious than great," but the book does not claim to be great. "The Great Work"
is "The Living of a Life" in conformity with one's own best intelligence and
highest ideals of Equity, Justice and Right at any given time. This is the
teaching of the criticised book, "The Great Work," and all its students soon
learn to discriminate between those things which are purely personal and
selfish, and those things which make for a greater unfoldment of one's own
capacities and powers. In this way learning by doing, and thus by experience
discovering how difficult it is to "live the life."

In the criticism we read:
"The writer of "The Great Work" is all the while handicapped by the idea that
he is the keeper of a wonderful treasure of truth, which must be carefully
guarded from the eye of the profane, lest it be betrayed into the hands of
those who are not worthy or well qualified to receive it."

But the handicap is not of
the making of "The Great School," nor is it the fault of the author of "The
Great Work." Let me quote from the book, "The Builders," by Joseph Fort
Newton, as to guarded secrets:

"God shields us from
premature ideas, said the gracious and wise Emerson; and so does nature. She
holds back her secrets until man is fit to be entrusted with them, lest by
rashness he destroy himself. Those who seek find, not because the truth is far
off, but because the discipline of the quest makes them ready for the truth,
and worthy to receive it. By a certain sure instinct, the great teachers of
our race have regarded the highest truth less as a gift bestowed than as a
trophy won. Everything must not be told to everybody. Truth is a power, and
when held by untrue hands it may become a plague."

Now contrast the foregoing
with the following quotation from "The Great Work" to discover exactly the
same spirit in regard to secret teachings:

"The questions referred to
(why secrecy) have been put by the skeptical, the critical, and the
hypercritical; without taking into account the fact that unusual knowledge is
obtainable only under specific conditions which may also be unusual. Some of
the (questions) are as follows:

"1. If there be Masters, or
Wise men, why do they not present themselves to the world and prove their
identity as such ?

"2. Why withhold anything
from anybody, if it is true?

"3. If the men who possess it
are honest, and the knowledge they possess is of value to humanity, what
excuse or reason can there possibly be for 'Secrets' or for 'secrecy?'

"4. If the School of Natural
Science has, in truth, solved the sublime problem of another life, has
discovered the Principle of Nature to which that problem is related, and has
wrought out a definite and scientific formulary in conformity with which
others may solve the same great problem for themselves, and if all this
wonderful knowledge is as important for the welfare of humanity as it would
seem to be then why has not the Great School given it to the world long ago?
In other words, why hide their light under a bushel? Why not open wide the
doors of their treasure-house to whomsoever may come ?

"In substance, if not in
actual form, these same questions have been asked many times, and by many
different individuals. They have been put in such manner and with such
ingenious inflection as clearly to indicate that those who have asked them
believe them to be 'unanswerable.' They have, in truth, been asked by those
whose very tone, emphasis, look and manner combine to convey the challenge:
'Answer me if you dare.'

"In the spirit of courtesy
and candor, and with the utmost good will toward, and consideration for, those
whose accusing and condemning attitude of mind makes the task one of great
difficulty, it is the purpose, here and now, to answer these questions as
fully and as frankly as their nature and importance would seem to justify.
This is done, not alone for the benefit of those who have asked them, but also
for as many others as may desire to understand the fundamental principle of
Ethics which underlies them all." (The Great Work, Page 192.)

For a-complete answer to the
foregoing questions see Chapter XII, "The Great Work." Again in the criticism,
in The Builder, paragraph two, we read:

"Indeed one has a right to be
suspicious of a book, which makes claim of knowing what is unknown to all the
world and the rest of mankind, which leaves the inference that the noblest and
most reverent scholars of the world are not worthy to receive its revelation."

On the contrary, the book
(The Great Work) is "ADDRESSED to the PROGRESSIVE INTELLIGENCE of the AGE,"
and it clearly and definitely elucidates that point throughout the text.

The article in The Builder
(did I not have great respect for its Editor in his knowledge of the teaching
and his intention "to render justice to all men") would convey to me a
misrepresentation of the real position, purposes, and claims of the author of
"The Great Work."

Relying on our mutual respect
for the truth and for the laborious work necessary to a true foundation for
studious opinions, I am requesting publicity for "Another View of The Great
Work," because I am sure many members of the National Masonic Research Society
have found as much helpful inspiration from a study of that book, as they have
found satisfaction in reading one of the latest of Masonic books, viz., "The
Builders." Because the method of the "Great Work" is "personal effort," that
is the individual must live the life to know the doctrine. This same idea is
enunciated on page 63 of "The Builders," viz., "Fitness for the finer truths
cannot be conferred; it must be developed."

Again the criticism in "The
Builder" magazine says:

"For not one of the
statements (as to the antiquity of the GREAT SCHOOL) is there the slightest
shred of evidence, not even a shadow of a basis in fact."

The name "The Great School"
is the modern name of an ancient school whose "membership is composed of a
voluntary association of men whose lives and labors are dedicated and devoted
to the acquirement and perpetuation of knowledge in the broad and unlimited
field of science--physical, spiritual, psychical and ethical-- and to its
application to the development of individual life, individual intelligence,
individual conscience, individual liberty, individual morality, and individual
happiness." To these devotees of science in its broadest and best sense, may
be added such students as have come to them for infinite instruction in the
various departments of their knowledge. . . . "For reasons which appear to
them both imperative and just, their work of investigation, experiment,
demonstration and instruction is prosecuted and accomplished under the
protecting shield of personal confidence and secrecy." ("The Great Work,"
pages 40-41.)

In the foregoing quotation we
have the purposes of The Great School disclosed, the purposes are as ancient
as the school itself. The "basis in fact" for the existence of the school will
in time disclose itself when we learn to what extent these ideals and purposes
were held and taught by the ancient members of The Great School, as indicated
and evidenced in the following citations:

TESTIMONY
OF GROTE.

"The allegorical
interpretations of myths has been by several learned investigators connected
with the hypothesis of an ancient and highly instructed body of priests,
having their origin either in Egypt or in the East, and communicating to the
rude and barbarous Greeks religious, physical and historical knowledge under
the veil of symbols." (Grote's History of Greece--Everymans' Library Edition,
Page 81, Vol. II.)

STATEMENTS
OF PHILO.

"They have also ancient
authors who were once heads of their school, and left behind them many
monuments of the methods used in their allegorical works. . . . He who is the
senior most skilled in the doctrines, comes forward and discourses, with
steadfast eyes and steadfast voice, with reason and thoughtfulness; not making
a display of word-cleverness, as the rhetoricians and sophists of today, but
examining closely and explaining the precise meaning in the thoughts, a
meaning which does not merely light on the tips of the ears, but pierces the
ears and reaches the Soul and steadfastly abides there." (Philo "On the
Contemplative Life." By Fred C. Conybeare, Oxford 1895.)

THE EXPERT
OPINION OF THE LEARNED MEAD

"These secret brotherhoods
(of Ancient Egypt) left no public records; they kept themselves apart from the
world and the world knew them not. But it is just these communities, which
were the links in the chain of heredity of the Gnosis," i.e. Knowledge of the
things that are. ("Fragments of a Faith Forgotten," by G. R. S. Mead, Page
61.)

"Most of these mystic schools
and communities, whether of Greek or Egyptian or Jewish descent, when they
came in contact with each other, gave and received . . . and so modified their
preconceptions and enlarged their horizons." ("Fragments of a Faith
Forgotten," by G. R. S. Mead, Page 95.)

The foregoing quotations are
but a few of many of the same nature that could be made. They indicate that
ancient communities or schools of learning have existed in remote times, and
without going into the question of chronology, the world old quest reaches far
back into the ages.

For instance, "The
Babylonians were not content with merely editing their ritual and religious
hymns or their myths about the gods and heroes; they also compiled
commentaries and explanatory text-books which gave philological and other
information about the older religious literature." ("The Origin and Growth of
Religion," by A. H. Sayce, Page 16.)

The main characteristic of
the ancient teaching was the profound secrecy in which the traditions were
kept, we therefore have to rely on the spirit and purposes of ancient teaching
and veiled symbolic allusions. It is certain, that the mystery-side of
religion was initiation into a higher knowledge; the highest praise is
bestowed upon the Mysteries by the greatest thinkers among the Greeks, who are
witnesses to the purity of the teaching, which enabled men to live better
lives here and to depart from this life with the certainty of immortality.
Pythagoras is said to have been initiated into the Egyptian, Chaldean, Orphic
and Eleusinan mysteries. He is known or remembered in India today under the
name Yavancharya, or the Ionian teacher.

Now as to "records" the
existence of which is in doubt in the minds of many because of the partial
statement quoted from the book, "The Great Work" -- and included in the fourth
paragraph of the criticism in The Builder, together with the critic's
questions: "Did he (T.K.) ever see those records of immemorial time, reaching
thousands of years back of Moses? Did he ever see any one who did see them ?
If so, how does he know that they are authentic? By what science for the
testing of documents did he determine their authenticity?"

In the same paragraph on page
43 of the book, "The Great Work," from which The Builder quotes we read:

"These (records) cover a
consecutive and unbroken chain backward from the immediate present to a time
many thousand of years before the Mosaic period." But we may also read in that
same paragraph: "For a number of years, however, he (T.K.) has been in
personal touch with members of The Great School, and during that time has
received from them a definite and personal instruction, from which it may not
be deemed impertinent or presumptuous to present for the thoughtful
consideration of the reader the following brief and incomplete summary."

The answer is complete. As a
student in the Great School, in personal touch with its members, commissioned
by them to present an outline of its methods, purposes, and teachings to the
modern world, he doubtless has in proofs all, and more, than the question
demand. That a complete and satisfactory answer is not vouchsafed any and
every one on demand, I may be permitted to again quote from "The Builders":

The "one great secret (of
Freemasonry) is that it has no secret. Its principles are published abroad in
its writings, its purposes and laws are known, and the times and places of its
meetings. Having come down from dark days of persecution when all the finer
things sought the protection of seclusion, if it still adheres to secret
rites, it is not in order to hide the truth, but the better to teach it more
impressively to train men in its pure service, and to promote union and amity
upon earth. Its signs and grips serve as a kind of universal language, and
still more as a gracious cover for the practice of sweet charity-- making it
easier to help a fellow man in dire plight without hurting his self-respect.
If a few are attracted to it by curiosity, all remain to pray, finding
themselves members of a great historic fellowship of the seekers and finders
of God. It is old because it is true; had it been false it would have perished
long ago. When all men practice its simple precepts, the innocent secrets of
Masonry will be laid bare, its mission accomplished, and its labors done."
(The Builders, Page 244.)

To which all Masons, as well
as all students of the Great Work say, "So mote it be"--because it is exactly
the position of the Great Work.

Further in regard to books,
manuscripts and records, the existence of which is doubted by some and denied
by others:

"Egyptian research has
independently arrived at the conclusion that the pyramid-builders were at
least as old as the fourth millennium before the Christian era. The great
pyramids of Gizeh were in course of erection, the hieroglyphic system of
writing was already fully developed, Egypt itself was thoroughly organized and
in the enjoyment of a high culture and civilization, at a time when, according
to Archbishop Usher's chronology, the world was being created." ("The Origin
and Growth of Religion," by A. H. Sayce, Page 33, 34.)

The collective researches of
Orientalists, and especially the labors of late years of the students of
comparative Philology and Religion have led them to conclude, that, an immense
number of manuscripts and even printed works known to have existed, are now to
be found no more. They have disappeared without leaving the slightest trace
behind them.

Were they works of no
importance they might, in the natural course of time, have been left to
perish, and their very names would have been obliterated from human memory.
But it is not so; for as now ascertained most of them contained the true keys
to works still extant, and entirely incomprehensible, for the greater portion
of their readers, without those additional volumes of commentaries and
explanations. (For the missing works of Lao Tze and Confucius, see "Lectures
on The Science of Religion," by Max Muller, Page 185.)

The ancient teachings to
which allusion is made, can be followed in the remains of every ancient
nation, and underlie the spiritual (but not spiritualistic) teaching of the
present time.

Tradition asserts that
thousands of ancient parchments were saved when the Alexandrian Library was
destroyed by Julius Caesar, B.C. 48; in A. D. 390; and 640 A. D. by the
General of Kaliph Omar. (Consult Moses of Khorene, National Historian of
Armenia.) Thousands of Sanscrit works disappeared during the reign of Akbar.
The universal tradition in China and Japan, is, that the true old texts with
the commentaries have long since passed out of the reach of profane hands; the
disappearance of five or six times the matter contained in our Bible, besides
80,000 or more Buddhist tracts, (The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists,"
by Spencer Hardy) to say nothing of the loss of the sacred Babylonian
Commentaries, and the loss of the Symbolic key to Egyptian hieroglyphic
records.

"The number of separate
works in Sanscrit, of which manuscripts are still in existence, is estimated
by Professor Max Muller to amount to about 10,000, which makes him exclaim,
'what would Plato and Aristotle have said, if they had been told that at that
time there existed in that India, which Alexander had just discovered, if not
conquered, an ancient literature far richer than anything they possessed at
that time in Greece?'

"We can readily conceive that
amongst these manuscripts there are dramas and works of fiction innumerable,
and treatises in literature and science, but there is little hope of their
being completely investigated and sifted, and only like nuggets in a mine are
the really valuable works likely to be found accidentally." ("Hindu
Astronomy," by W. Brennand, page 132.)

These traditions make
interesting study--but time prompts the assertion of a companion tradition in
India of subterranean abodes, of large corridors filled with tiles, cylinders
and other records, to reappear in some more enlightened age, when bigotry
shall no longer blind the human mind and prevent careful study of the facts
before judgment is pronounced. ("Historie des Vierges: Les Peoples et les
Continents Disparus.")

Purely Brahamanical
consideration, based on greed of power and ambition, allowed the masses in
India (as in Egypt) to remain in ignorance of great truths; and exactly these
same causes compelled the Initiates among the early Christians to remain
silent because some of the uninitiated Church Fathers, who had never developed
so as to know the truth, disfigured the order of things.

"Once more we may repeat that
there was early intercourse between Egypt and Babylonia and that in this
intercourse the prevailing influences came from the East." ("Archaeology of
Cuneiform Inscriptions," by Prof. A. H. Sayce, page 144.)

The chief of an ancient Hindu
Pagoda said to Colonel Tod, who was better loved by the natives than any other
Englishman:

"Shahib, you lose your time
in vain researches. The Bellati India (i.e. the India of foreigners) is before
you, but you will never see the Gupta India (secret India.) We are the
guardians of her mysteries, and would rather cut out each other's tongues than
speak."

Again referring to The
Builder, our Brother critic says: "Why did not the Great School begin its work
at home, and lift India out of the shadow of superstition and the paralysis of
pessimism." Passing by the work the School has endeavored to do the world
over, we may quote the criticised book, "The Great Work":

In India as in Egypt "the
tide of civilization at last reached its height. The material prosperity of a
nation or a people, when it rises to a certain point, seems of itself to
develop a subtle poison whose cumulative effects will, in due time, manifest
themselves physiologically within the body politic. First comes the spirit of
selfishness, then the desire for power, then the struggle for wealth, then the
practice of dishonesty, then the oppression and suppression of the weak, then
the protest of the injured, then the internecine strife, then the final
struggle for existence, and in the end spiritual darkness and national death.

"The poison of unassimilated
material prosperity was in the blood of Egypt. The spirit of selfishness took
possession of her people. The struggle for position and power began.
Dishonesty prevailed. Oppression and domination followed. Suffering and sorrow
were everywhere. The cry of the subject was unheard and unanswered. Death had
set its irrevocable seal upon the proudest of nations. Egypt died. The history
of her death struggle is the tragic story of the approaching and appalling
spiritual darkness which finally settled over that beautiful land of
sunshine." (The Great Work, page 56.)

Here is the reason why the
India of today is what we know her to be instead of that which she might have
been. Egypt died. India sleeps.

As we may read in the book,
"The Builders":

"Nevertheless, if life on
earth be worthless, so is immortality. The real question, after all, is not as
to the quantity of life, but its quality--its depth, its purity, its
fortitude, its fineness of spirit and gesture of soul. Hence the insistent
emphasis of Masonry upon the building of character and the practice of
righteousness; upon the moral culture without which man is rudimentary, and
that spiritual vision without which intellect is the slave of greed and
passion. What makes a man great and free of soul, here or any whither, is
loyalty to the laws of right, of truth, of purity, of love, and the lofty will
of God. How to live is the one matter; and the oldest man in his ripe age has
yet to seek a wiser way than to build, year by year, upon a foundation of
faith in God, using the Square of Justice, the Plumb-line of rectitude, the
Compass to restrain the passions, and the Rule by which to divide our time
into labor, rest and service to our fellows. Let us begin now and seek wisdom
in the beauty of virtue and live in the light of it, rejoicing- so in this
world shall we have a foregleam of the world to come--bringing down to the
Gate in the Mist something that ought not to die, assured that, though hearts
are dust, as God lives what is excellent is enduring." (The Builders, page
275, 276.)

So then let us include in
this communication Max Muller's testimony as to the influence of ancient
teachings in old India:

"If I were asked under what
sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has
most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions
of some of them, which well deserve the attention, even of those who have
studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India." (What India Can Teach Us, by
Max Muller.)

A modern formulation of the
ancient spiritual science, whose ancient home is India, may be quoted in this
connection from "The Great Work" and is that which "attention" is called:

"And finally, it is hoped
that when the work is finished it will impress upon every reader in such
manner as to inspire him to immediate action, the paramount fact that it is to
his own best interest, his own greatest good and his own largest possibility
of happiness, both now and in the future of this life, both here and in the
life to come, to enter at once upon the noble and ennobling task of 'Living a
Life' in conformity with Nature's Constructive Principle, and never thereafter
to falter until he shall arrive at the goal of individual Mastership, whether
that be in this life or in the great hereafter." (The Great Work, Page 209.)

In the foregoing we have
referred to the high ideals and lofty purposes of the Great School as
disclosed in the book, "The Great Work," contrasting them with similar ideals
and purposes as revealed in the book, "The Builders." Both books are the work
of Masons. Both aim to show the traditions of the past and to inculcate the
personal effort necessary to be a man, not merely in form, but in faith, in
spirit, and still more in character. So mote it be.

(As an open forum for
fraternal discussion, The Builder is very glad to have the friends of TK
present their claims, and no one of them is more welcome to do so than Dr.
Stewart, of the Cincinnati Masonic Study School, whose attainments as a
student of Masonry entitle him to be heard on any theme of Masonic interest.
Happily he is not one of those, of whom there have been a few, who regard any
difference of opinion as a personal insult. Far from it. His article is
admirable in spirit, like the man himself, and we need not say that it is
equally choice in statement and form. Howbeit, we beg him to believe that we
never for a moment made the mistake of imagining that TK, in the title of his
book, described it as Great. Not so. Our reference was to the estimate of the
book by other Brethren who called it "the greatest Masonic book in the world";
hence our remark that it seems to us "more curious than great." For the rest,
we may take the points of the article in order:

First in respect of the
Secrecy employed by the alleged Great school. Brother Stewart quotes from our
little book, The Builders, to prove, what we never at any time denied, that
everything must not be told to everybody. But that is not the question at all.
It is not the secrecy of the teaching of the supposed Great School that we
criticise, but the fact that the existence and history of the School are kept
secret. Masonry also employs a secret method of teaching, but its existence is
no secret. Its Old Charges, its history, and even a part of its ritual are
written and may be read by all. Not once have we suggested, much less
demanded, that TK betray any of the secret doctrine of the Great School, but
he should at least be willing to prove that such a School exists. Brother
Stewart reminds us that prominent Masons have talked with TK and convinced
themselves that such a School does exist; but surely that need not be a matter
to be talked of in whispers behind closed doors.

Second, even if such a Great
School exists, having headquarters "in the far off India"--and as to this we
make no question, for there are many Great Schools in India and elsewhere and
have been time out of mind--that does not prove that it has existed from the
beginning of time, with records antedating the days of Moses and the pyramids.
Grote, Philo, Mead and others are quoted by Brother Stewart to prove what we
have never questioned, that religious and philosophical schools existed in
ancient times. Manifestly so. The Mysteries were such. The Greek schools of
Philosophy were such. We may even go back to the Men's House of primitive
tribal life, which was a secret Lodge in which every youth, when he became of
age, was initiated into the law, legend, and religion of his people -- with
ceremonies not unlike those used today. But Brother Stewart, by his own
quotations, proves too much. He shows that there were many Schools--whereof
Yarker has written so learnedly in his "Arcane Schools"--myriads of Schools,
not one Great School superintending the education of humanity, creating
Buddhism, early Christianity and Freemasonry, as TK affirms. So that, his
quotations are quite wide of the mark, so far as this discussion is concerned.

Third, as to the "records" of
the hypothetical Great School, Brother Stewart is content to show, what we
have not called in question, that there were many precious records treasured
by men in "the gray years of old." some of which, alas, were destroyed. But
that has nothing to do with the matter in hand. TK claims that the records of
his Great School have been preserved intact, and that they run back into
pre-historic times, telling the story of man's slow climb out of darkness
toward the Light--including a record of the life of Jesus who, it is alleged,
was a member of the School. His statement to this effect is definite and
unqualified; not a theory, as Brother Fenell pointed out, but an affirmation.
Some of us make request for proof of it. And it is not enough to tell us that
TK has talked with members of the Great School and found that it is true.
Without betraying any of her secrets. Masonry publishes her most ancient
documents to the world. If the alleged Great School has such documents, why
not ask it to do likewise--the more so that it purports to possess a hidden
life of Jesus and the true story of the origin of Masonry? As a matter of
fact, the statements of TK are impossible of proof, in the nature of things,
and he knows it. Brother Stewart quotes the words of TK to the effect that for
a number of years he has been in personal touch with members of the Great
School and knows what he is talking about, and says that "the answer is
complete." It is not complete. It is no answer at all. It does not even touch
the question, much less answer it. Nor does the passage quoted from The
Builders help his case in the least.

Fourth, very graciously
Brother Stewart proceeds to show that the spirit and moral teaching of the
Great Work are in harmony with the teaching which we tried to set forth in the
closing chapters of The Builders. Exactly. Moral science, and the laws of the
life of the spirit, are as much agreed upon, the world over, as are the
propositions of mathematics. Life has no meaning save as we see it as a Great
School for the building of character, and its deepest satisfactions, as well
as its highest joys, are to be found in doing the will of Him "in whose great
hand we stand." Masonry is a Great School of spiritual faith and moral
culture; all that is secret about it is its method of teaching--which is true,
as we pointed out in The Builders, of all the Arcana Schools of old. Still,
the moral teaching of Masonry is one thing and its history is another; and in
The Builders we kept the two apart, treating tradition as tradition, legend as
legend, history as history, and we insist that TK should do the same. Masonry
stands in a great Secret Tradition, an epitome of universal initiation,
deriving, no doubt, from many Arcane Schools; using its history, its
traditions, its symbols and dramas the better to bring young men to discover
the greatest of all Secrets, at once the most open and the most hidden--the
kinship of the soul with God its Father, and of life as love and comradeship,
here and hereafter.--The Editor.)

An' lookin' for th' main high
road - poor chaps who've lost their way.

It ain't so far from Right to
Wrong - th' trail ain't hard to lose;

There's times I'd almost give
my horse to know which one to choose;

There ain't no guides or
signboards up to keep you on th' track;

Wrong's sometimes white as
driven snow, an' Right looks awful black.

I don't set up to be no judge
of right or wrong in men;

I've lost the trail sometimes
myself, an' may get lost again;

An' when I see a chap who
looks as though he'd gone astray,

I want to shove my hand in
his an' help him find th' way!

- Selected

----o----

UP THE
ROAD

Friends of mine along the
way,

Whither bound this windy day?

Join us, friend, our way is
one,

Up the road, till day is
done.

Up the road toward light of
Home,

Shining far for all who roam,

Shining for us brothers all,

Lest we falter, lest we fall.

Up the road, with words of
cheer

Fit to banish every fear,

Helpful deeds and kindly
smiles,

Easing so the wind-swept
miles.

Up the road we brothers all !

Brave to answer every call;

Up the road, till day is done

And the goal at last is won.

- Charles S. Newhall, in the
Survey.

----o----

SHE WOULD
BE A MASON

By James C. Naughton

The funniest story I ever
heard,

The funniest thing that ever
occurred,

Is the story of Mrs.
Mehitable Byrde

Who wanted to be a Mason.

Her husband, Tom Byrde, is a
Mason true,

As good a Mason as any of
you;

He is tyler of Lodge Cerulean
Blue,

And tyles and delivers the
summons due.

And she wanted to be a Mason
too -

This ridiculous Mrs. Byrde.

She followed him round, this
inquisitive wife,

And nabbed and teased him
half out of his life;

So to terminate this
unhallowed strife

He consented at last to admit
her.

And first, to disguise her
from bonnet to shoon

This ridiculous lady agreed
to put on

His breech - Ah! forgive me,
I meant pantaloons;

And miraculously did they fit
her.

The lodge was at work on the
Master's degree;

The light was ablaze on the
letter G;

High soared the pillars J.
and B.;

The officers sat like Solomon
wise;

The brimstone burned amid
horrid cries;

The goat roamed wildly
through the room,

The candidate begged them to
let him go home,

And the devil himself stood
up in the east,

As proud as an alderman at a
feast,

When in came Mrs. Byrde.

Oh, horrible sounds! oh,
horrible sight!

Can it be that Masons take
delight

In spending thus the hours of
night ?

Ah! could their wives and
daughters know

The unutterable things they
say and do

Their feminine hearts would
burst with woe.

But this is not all my story,

For those Masons joined in a
hideous ring,

The candidate howled like
anything

And thus in tones of death
they sing

(The candidate's name was
Morey):

"Blood to drink and bones to
crack,

Skulls to smash and lives to
take,

Hearts to crush and souls to
burn -

Give old Morey another turn,

And make him all grim and
gory."

Trembling with horror stood
Mrs. Byrde,

Unable to speak a single
word;

She staggered and fell in the
nearest chair,

On the left of the Junior
Warden there,

And scarcely noticed, so loud
the groans,

That the chair was made of
human bones.

Of human bones! on grinning
skulls

That ghastly throne of horror
rolls -

Those skulls, the skulls that
Morgan bore !

Those bones, the bones that
Morgan wore !

His scalp across the top was
flung

His teeth around the arms
were strung -

Never in all romance was
known

Such uses made of human bone.

That brimstone gleamed in
lurid flame,

Just like a place we will not
name;

Good angels, that inquiring
came

From blissful courts, looked
on with shame

And tearful melancholy.

Again they dance but twice as
bad

They jump and sing like
demons mad!

The tune is "Hunkey Dorey" -

"Blood to drink and bones to
crack,

Skulls to smash and lives to
take."

Then came a pause - a pair of
paws

Reached through the floor, up
sliding doors,

And grabbed the unhappy
candidate !

How can I without tears
relate

The lost and ruined Morey's
fate?

She saw him sink in a fiery
hole,

And heard him scream, "My
soul! my soul!"

While roars of fiendish
laughter roll

And drown the yells for
mercy!

That ridiculous woman could
stand no more -

She fainted and fell on the
checkered floor

'Midst all the 'diabolical
roar.

What then, you ask me, did
befall

Mehitable Byrde ? Why,
nothing at all -

She had dreamed she'd been in
the Mason's hall.

FREEMASONS
AS BUILDERS

A Series of Researches into
the Operative Efforts of the Craft

1. THE TEMPLE AT
INDlAlNAPOLlS

BY BRO. ELMER F. GAY, P.G.M.
OF INDIANA

THE Masonic Temple of Indianapolis is owned
jointly by the Grand Lodge F. & A.M. of Indiana and the Indianapolis Masonic
Temple Association. The latter Association is composed of eleven directors
representing eight Blue Lodges, two Chapters Royal Arch Masons and Raper
Commandery No. 1, K. T. Each party owns an undivided one-half of the building
and real estate.

The building has a frontage of 130 feet on
Illinois Street, facing west and a depth of 150 feet on North Street. It is of
Ionic style of architecture and is faced on all four sides with Bedford stone,
backed with brick. The walls are unusually heavy, being five feet thick at the
foundation. There are no windows above the first floor, except some are glass
on the Illinois Street front, which are for decorative purposes only.
Artificial ventilation is used exclusively in the building. The air is taken
from the street level, and, after being thoroughly washed, is forced through
heaters to all parts of the Temple.

The first floor is used exclusively for Grand
Lodge purposes. The main foyer is about 40x50 feet, which, with the double
stairways, is finished in Italian marble. At the right of the foyer are the
quarters of the Grand Secretary, on the left the Grand Lodge Library and check
room for the entire building.* Directly in the rear is the Grand Lodge
Auditorium which has a large, well equipped stage as well as 1,200 leather
upholstered opera chairs, and, as Indiana has but one representative from each
lodge at the Grand Lodge meetings, ample accommodation is provided for many
years to come.

The Temple is four double stories high, which
allows for four mezzanine floors in the west end. The first floor mezzanine
has two kitchens and three dining rooms, each with a seating capacity of about
two hundred. They are divided by folding doors which may be opened, throwing
the three into one room, if desired.

The Second and Third floors are exactly alike, and
each contain two Blue Lodge rooms, size 50X70, a tyler's room, preparation
room, two examination rooms, smoking room, and a large social room, size about
60x35 feet. The two social rooms are divided by collapsible doors which, when
opened, make a room about 35x120 feet, used for dances, receptions, etc.

In the west end of the lodge rooms is a balcony
containing a pipe organ, choir and lantern rooms. The gallery is reached by
two sets of stairs, each containing three, five and seven steps. The four
lodge rooms are named the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite, and differ
only in the style of furnishing. The second and third mezzanine are devoted
exclusively to the use of candidates, each lodge room having six individual
preparation rooms. The fourth floor is devoted to the use of the Chapters,
Council and Commandery, and contains an Asylum, Red Cross room, Armory and
social room, for the use of the Commandery, a Chapter room with necessary
anterooms for use of the Chapters and Council. The asylum and Chapter room
each contain a pipe organ.

The fourth floor mezzanine contains a kitchen and
banquet room, capable of seating about 350. This room is for the exclusive use
of the bodies using the fourth floor of the Temple.

The specially prepared roof is used by the
Commandery as a drill room and by the other bodies for garden entertainments.
The basement is used for boilers and machinery purposes. Two Chapters of the
Order of the Eastern Star meet in the lodge rooms on the second floor. This
Temple is used only by York Rite Masons, the Scottish Rite and Shrine having
separate Temples of their own.

----o----

* (No coats or hats are allowed above the first
floor, all persons being required to check their clothing in the main check
room off the lobby, from which two high speed elevators take you to any floor
desired.)

EDITORIAL

(The Builder is an open forum
for free and fraternal discussion. Each of its contributors writes under his
own name, and is responsible for his own opinions. Believing that a unity of
spint is better than a uniformity of opinion, the Research Society, as such,
does not champion any one school of Masonic thought as over against another;
but offers to all alike a medium for fellowship and instruction, leaving each
to stand or fall by its own merits.)

WAR AND
THE MYSTIC TIE

ALAS ! it seems decreed that the nations must at
last make a desolation, and call it Peace. Anything may happen in these wild
and fateful days in which we live, when the whole world is half mad and half
of it wholly mad. Many things fair and fine have already been crushed by
racial rancors and national hatreds running riot in a vast eruption of
savagery, and the end is not yet. Dreadful days lie ahead of us, when the very
existence of civilization will hang in the balance, and nothing will be heard
but the thunder of great guns and the hot steps of the Lords of Hell as they
ride to ruin - nothing, save a wail of woe following the evening sun around
the world!

Much of what we call modern thought passed quietly
away into sleep at midnight on August 4th, 1914, and the Clock of Time was set
back for an age. Since that dark date tie after tie by which men were bound
together, has been broken, until little is left but the Law of the Jungle -
that he may take who has the power and he may keep who can. Science turned
traitor, and by its very skill in the mastery of force has changed the
beautiful earth into a human slaughter-house. The Church failed, having lost
what it claimed to possess, the power to uplift and guide the nations, to draw
men to each other, and to base human life on love of man for his fellow.
Socialism, with its vague humanitarian mysticism and its fine rhetoric of a
cosmopolitan philosophy, collapsed like a house of cards in a storm.

Last of all, the mystic tie of Masonry seems to
have given way under the pressure of world-war; the Grand Lodge of England,
after a memorable debate, having severed relations with its Teutonic Brethren
- the Masons of Germany having already repudiated their Brethren in England,
France, and Italy. No doubt it was inevitable that men should act so, looking
at each other, as they do, across a million graves where sleep the fathers of
dream-children never to be born! We do not chide, we only grieve. Nor do we
let go of faith, as not a few have done, for the cynical dogma that humanity,
so far from being the offspring of God, was begotten by the Father of Lies,
upon the daughter of a Thief - its culture a veneer covering an immobile
animalism which nothing can alter or influence.

No, no ! Albeit we do recall that during the blood
and fire and tears of our own Civil War, when States were divided and Churches
were rent asunder, the Masonic tie was not broken. While it could not avert
the tragedy of war, it did mitigate the horror of it, building rainbow bridges
across the battle lines, and many a man in Gray planted a Sprig of Acacia on
the grave of a Brother in Blue. Today, those graves where heroes sleep
together have sunk level with the sod, and the men who met as foes at
Gettysburg have tented together as friends, each paying tribute to the valor
of the other. From this fact let us take hope that, no matter how virulent and
violent the present war may be, this, too, shall pass away, and the hatred
which glows like a furnace today will give place to thoughts of gentleness and
pity.

Have no doubt; the men in arms across the sea are
not different from us. Soon they will have their Decoration Days, and over the
graves of their uncomplaining dead will be drawn closer together, seeing with
eyes purified by suffering that the truth which each fought for was but a
fragment, a gleam, of a greater truth, and that courage, sacrifice and heroic
aspiration are the virtues of all peoples. Men who are now enemies will see
each other as they are, and then they will he enemies no more, but friends,
even as our North and South, once arrayed in long lines of blue and gray, are
now united and free. The Great War will purge the bitterness of spirit from
the peoples and a common sorrow will fall upon them like a benediction, the
while they turn their energies to the upbuilding of the civilization which
their conflict threatened to destroy.

* * *

WASHINGTON'S MASONIC LETTERS -

Having just returned from a visit to Mount Vernon, we found
awaiting us a copy of "Washington's Masonic Correspondence as Found Among the
Washington Papers in the Library of Congress," compiled from the original
records, under the direction of a committee on library of the Grand Lodge of
Pennsylvania, with annotations by the venerable Brother Julius F. Sachse. It
is a noble volume, containing copies and fac-similes never before published,
the William Williams painting of Washington the Mason, now in the
Alexandria-Washington Lodge, serving as a frontispiece - with sixteen other
illustrations well selected and exquisitely mounted. This historic volume was
prepared under the supervision of Grand Master J. Henry Williams of
Pennsylvania, and its publication is a notable event in the annals of Masonic
literature, alike for its beauty and its value. A detailed review of it will
appear later, but we must say at once that it sets at naught, now and forever,
all the statements, arguments and libels of the fanatics of the anti-Masonic
craze of the last century that Washington never
belonged to the fraternity, or that he had but a languid interest in its
affairs. The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, in its publication of this volume,
has rendered a distinguished service to Freemasonry, laying the Craft under
abiding obligations of gratitude and goodwill.

* * *

FREEMASONS
AS BUILDERS -

Elsewhere in this issue Brother Clegg gives us a
wide vision of the seriousness of the building problem faced by Masons all
over the United States, as the Fraternity, more and more, demands larger and
better quarters. If he calls attention to mistakes, more than to successes, it
is to warn those who contemplate a new Temple, of the pitfalls in their path.
We gladly give space to his article, because he speaks from experience, and
because his counsel is beyond peradventure timely and good.

Happily, however, not all Masonic temples have
brought with them serious troubles. In many cases Lodges are fortunate to have
practical men with big hearts, and long experience, who have been able to
build into a Masonic temple in a simple but comprehensive way those elements
of convenience which make the "work" of the Lodge, as well as the social
features, a joy to those who participate therein. Such a case is that at
Indianapolis. Here the Grand Lodge of Indiana, and the enthusiastic Brethren
of the city of Indianapolis have joined hands in the erection of a commodious,
convenient, and, as we think, almost an ideal Masonic Temple.

The Grand Lodge has its auditorium, Library and
Grand Master's and Grand Secretary's suite all on the main floor. Above are
quarters for the Blue Lodges, Chapters and Commanderies of Indianapolis, and
the detailed floor plan of the Blue Lodge floor shows how carefully every
comfort, as well as necessity, of the foundation degrees in Masonry has been
considered. If anything, even more ingenious has been the method by which the
conferring of the Chapter and Commandery degrees has been made easy. And best
of all, every detail of all of these degrees is brought out in the hall itself
- the Brethren can see the whole degree, in every case (with but a single
exception).

We hope that our illustrations of this wonderful
temple will convey all this to the Brethren, particularly those who may be
interested in Temple construction in a practical way, now, or in the immediate
future. From time to time we shall publish drawings of other temples - always
with a view of bringing before the Craft those elements which are vital and
essential, and which may easily be incorporated into almost any Masonic
Temple, no matter what its cost.

* * *

MASONIC
BOOKS -

So many and so urgent have been the requests of
Brethren to know how and where they may obtain Masonic books, that we venture
to suggest that they take the matter up with the Torch Press Book Shop, Cedar
Rapids, Iowa. Ye editor has no interest in this firm, save that he has dealt
with it for many years, and, knowing it to be courteous, efficient and in all
ways trustworthy, he does not hesitate to commend it to Brethren in quest of
books and to Lodges seeking to form libraries. Many of our best Masonic books
are out of print, but may be had at second-hand, and as the Torch Press Book
Shop deals in books both old and new, and is in constant touch with
book-dealers both in this country and abroad, it will be able to aid the
Brethren. Meanwhile, ye editor offers his advice and assistance - such as it
is - both to the Book Shop and to any of his Brethren free gratis and for fun,
wishing to do all within his power to bring good books and good men together.

* * *

CORRESPONDENCE

WHAT SHALL
WE DO WITH THE RITUAL?

Dear Brother: - So much is there that finds ready
response in my heart that I hesitate to pick out a sentence from Brother
Robert Tipton's essay, page 155, The Builder, and give it less than praise. He
says: "I for one shall be happy to welcome the movement that will strive to
banish the antiquated terminology and render our ritual into easy unambiguous
English." Maybe I do not quite get at the meaning he wishes to convey. For
that matter, I am open to conviction on very many questions pertaining to the
fraternity. Further testimony is therefore always welcome. But as to the
ritual, is it not a fact that it has suffered more by excess of editing than
by lack of the "blue pencil" ?

Today I doubt if any two Grand Lodges approve the
same ritual. Familiar as I am with the "work" in several states I cannot
recall any uniformity after you cross the lines of official jurisdiction. If
then we have no more satisfactory conformity than is now finally or
tentatively exhibited by all the revision committees that have labored over
the problem I doubt very much the result of so broad a commission as the one
outlined by my Brother Tipton.

There might be some advantage in having a uniform
ritual but I fear that the results obtainable would not justify the effort.
The ritual in each state has grown to its present arrangement by small and
infrequent additions and subtractions. Familiar as each is at home, it would
not have the prestige abroad over a similarly accepted one. It seems
impossible that there would be any general give and take process that could be
agreed upon for a revised ritual for universal use.

However, I have sometimes thought a plan not
impossible of acceptance might be something after this style: Before we try to
bring these oft-tinkered rituals up to date, why not travel the other way? Is
it practicable to unearth the earlier forms of the ritual and then in each
state secure authority to give them or one of them, the oldest preferably,
once in a while ? A lodge of my acquaintance was wont to get its older members
once a year to present a degree as it used to be done in the long ago. These
meetings were always well attended. They were indeed events to be remembered.
Nevertheless the wisdom of this sort of thing is I daresay debatable.

Yet there is one way in which Brother Tipton's own
Grand Lodge can set an example. It owns the Bowers-Spencer-Hughan eighteenth
century ritual which is mentioned freely in that interesting book, "The Origin
of the English Rite." The first of the two degrees there given would be
suitable for lodge presentation. The third degree might raise objection. Into
the reason for this I need not go. Taking the degree work from that ritual
that seems admissible for rendition by the lodge members and I am sure it
would meet Brother Tipton's desires. I beg of him to look it over when he goes
on his pilgrimages to the Masonic Library at Cedar Rapids.

If there is to be a simplification of the ritual
attempted anywhere the unique possession of the Grand Lodge of Iowa is well
worth entrance for that honor. Would it not be well at some annual gathering
of your Grand Lodge for some enterprising brethren to put on that work with
the attendant lecture of the famous Peter Gilkes? And may it be my good
fortune to be among those present!

R. I. Clegg, Cincinnati.

* * *

THE
REALIZATION OF THE TRUTH

Esteemed Brothers: - "TK
and the Great School" is not such an important Masonic subject as "The problem
of demonstrating a future life" that Brother Fennell propounds in his letter
to you, and which
has been solved by TK and his "Great School," let us hope, and which, no
doubt, was the problem of the Ancient Mysteries in whose strenuous degrees
many are said to have disappeared forever.

This problem of the race, which too, is fast
becoming the deeper problem of Modern Masonry, as indirectly acknowledged in
the reply, "that the immortality of the soul is the polar expedition of
philosophy, as it is the polar star of faith." In which case it must become
the final purpose and object of all great educational movements, must and will
be solved.

The word "polar" left out of the above quotation
might leave the expedition open to include the hot sands of the desert
perhaps, or at least, convey a warmer feeling for the subject, but we suppose,
"ye Editor" wishes to keep perfectly cool.

Now the two prominent "landmarks" or great
milestones of Freemasonry are first, a belief in God, and next a belief in
immortality, and then the degrees proceed to show us how we can become one of
those "living stones eternal in the heavens." In other words, demonstrate the
mortal belief in immortality; but still, keeps before us the speculative or
doubtful success of the enterprise and the unusual difficulties to be
overcome. This would corroborate TK in his constructive principle with a lot
of doubt thrown in, and the fear that the constructive teaching might prove
destructive at any moment.

The egoistic claim of a Great School of very wise
brothers who know all, is only characteristic of nearly all the Oriental
teaching, and not out of keeping with the speculative knowledge implied to
P.G.M's, and S.G.C's, of Masonry. It may be attractive to many but need not
bother us who have some imagination of our own. It is along the same lines of
scripture teaching that the "Jews" are the special selected people of God, or
God's chosen people, all right possibly, in a spiritual sense, but does not
look well literally, for we think God is no respecter of persons.

Another question that stands out quite prominently
as we proceed, is the fact that these advanced Adepts who are represented to
be back of the several movements of human education differ among themselves,
and the different groups disagree as to the great Truth and as to method and
practice. This alone carries a doubt of their Great Knowledge, outside the
belief of their followers, for Truth cannot disagree, it is One, and God
Truth, and Spirit, are used as synonymous terms for Divine Perfection.

The principal weakness of the teaching of the TK,
as presented in the "Great Work" is its seeming neglect of God, that Divine
Shove which is the inspiring hope of humanity, and making "Personal
Responsibility" the keynote of endeavor. In this sense it is unmasonic, for
Scripture distinctly teaches that the "carnal mind" (sense or human mind) is
enmity against God and cannot understand spiritual ideas at all.

In place of God, it gives us a "Constructive
Principle" of nature which does not always work constructively and is very
dangerous, and an Elder Brother who is ruler of this planet earth, a Planetary
God subject to still higher authority, which is pantheism, even if it prove
true that there really exists such personal ruler.

As a matter of plain fact, Sin, Disease, and
Death,: are the names that include all the troubles of humanity, and the Holy
Bible is the text book accepted by this Western civilization, as containing
the remedy for it all. In it, the great teacher, Christ, tells us, that if we
keep his sayings we - shall never die. It also tells us that the strength of
sin is the law, and the result of this law of sin is death. And right here
lies the problem for Masonry, Christianity, or any other benevolent society,
for when this enemy, death, is destroyed, it is the last enemy of man and
eternal happiness is attained.

Now if the carnal mind is enmity against God,
(which is the one Truth we all want) and the wisdom of the world is
foolishness with God, then worldly wisdom will never solve the problem, and
yet, this same book tells us that by man came death and by man must come the
resurrection. So man must solve it and it naturally becomes the most inspiring
problem of the age, and all great minds will give it attention.

The best and most logical explanation, I have
seen, of that law which is the strength of sin and the cause of death, is
given in "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker Eddy;
she is truly Masonic in placing God first foremost and all the time, as the
"greatest help in time of trouble," and agrees with the ancient Hermetic
teaching in claiming that "all is Mind," but Divine not mortal, and further
agrees with the ancient Sages, (who are the only Great Learned Men that seem
tangible) that the Divine Mind is one Mind, and the All and source of all;
therefore, the question would not be the "demonstration of a future life," but
the Realization of the Truth of the Continuity of Life, now and always, and
that every expression of life is that life.

"Life Understood" by F. L. Rawson, an eminent
English scientist, the second edition of which has just been published, is
also an eye-opener along this line.

Fraternally yours

Arthur B. Rugg, Minneapolis.

* * *

UNAFFILIATED MASONS

Dear Brother: - There is a subject about which I
wish to say a few words - in regard to the great army of our unaffiliated
members. They are, most of them, aside from their one fault of
non-affiliation, good men and Masons. Some of them have become non-affiliated
through carelessness, having left the jurisdiction of their Mother Lodge. They
have let time slip by, unconsciously, until the amount due their Lodge is so
large that it would be a hardship for them to pay the sum required for
reinstatement. I have known this sum to go as high as twenty-five and thirty
dollars, an amount remarkably large for a workingman, with a family, to spare.
Often times he cannot possibly do so, and a member is lost. Why did not the
Brother state his case to the Lodge ? it may be asked. I will answer. I have
in mind a Brother who had something like twenty-five dollars charged against
him in his home Lodge, and he had met with misfortune through illness in his
family - his wife died leaving him with a large family to care for. He saved
ten dollars and sent his Lodge. I as secretary, under the seal of our Lodge,
wrote them the conditions. They refused to reinstate him until the full amount
was paid, and kept the ten dollars. I know of other cases of like kind.

We are adding new material to the building of the
Great Work, some of it good, some bad. No doubt some of it which has been
consigned to the rubbish heap may fit in some niche and be found valuable.
There will come a day when every stone in the "great edifice" will be tried by
fire to see if it is square and sound and true, and if in the highways or
byways we find one that has the right mark upon it, why not rejoice? In other
words, why not hold out an inducement to the unaffiliated and see what tie
result will be? What do you think of it? If the secretary of the Lodge, or the
master, would make it easier for them to resume work in the quarries, perhaps
they would do so.

Fraternally

L. C. Stewart, Florida.

* * *

MASONIC
EFFICIENCY

Dear Brother Editor: - I am very much interested
in the plans and purposes of the Research Society, and I will tell you why. In
common, as I believe, with many other Masons, I have many times wondered at
the apparent lack of definite purpose in Masonry, aside from the ritual work;
and as one ponders the matter it is really surprising that so much interest
can be maintained as is the case. I believe the explanation is to be found in
that vague conviction, which seems to lurk in the mind of even the least
informed Mason, that Truth of some important kind is concealed about the
premises. And to be candid, it is usually most effectually concealed, so that
truly, only he who seeks, and seeks diligently, may find.

The question, as I see it, is this: Is Masonry
anything more than a means of manicuring morals and massaging out the lines in
the characters of men? Most of us believe it is. If it only means a process of
making men respectable - a purveyor of genteel amusement to keep men out of
mischief - the Lodge has certainly been mistaken in the past, and is doomed in
the future. A Masonry that will make men hate evil and make them sacrifice for
good, will certainty be taken seriously. Anything less will not even be
laughed at. As I understand it, you are seeking to make Masonry efficient by
making it intelligible, and I am with you to the world's end, and back again.

Yours fraternally,

Oscar Wayman, Texas.

* * *

THE FIRST
SCOTTISH RITE MASON

Dear Brother: - I want to tell you something that I am sure
will interest you. I have the material in detail covering the life of Moses
Michael Hays, who was the first Scottish Rite Mason made on the North American
continent. You will remember that Morin was commissioned by the Grand Orient
of France to carry the Rite of Perfection to North America. Morin came to San
Domingo with the Grand Constitutions and there commissioned Francken as
Deputy. Francken came to Boston and there commissioned Hays. Hays later
commissioned Spitzer and Snitzer commissioned John Mitchell, who established
the Rite of Perfection at Charleston, the forerunner of the Mother Supreme
Council. Now very little has been known about Hays, but every Scottish Rite
Mason both of the Northern and Southern jurisdictions, should be interested in
being made familiar with the man whose patent connects his own directly with
the royal origin of the 32d Degree. While rummaging in the Boston Masonic
Library I came upon an old patent presented to the library years ago by E. W.
Myers, of Richmond, Va. It is either the original or a copy of the patent
given Hays by Francken. I am inclined to the opinion that it is a copy, but I
shall try to identify the penmanship so far as Francken is concerned, as I
know where some writing known to be his can be found. If the penmanship of
this patent and that of Francken's known writing are identical,
I have discovered, as you can see, a document that is the foundation stone of
both the Supreme Councils. But that is merely incidental to the life of Hays.
His title to his place as the first Scottish Rite Mason in America is
established incontestably in other ways.

Fraternally

C. D. Warner, Mass.

(This is indeed
interesting, and we sincerely hope that
Brother Warner will push his researches through, and give us the results of
his findings. The pages of The Builder are open to him to spread before the
Craft whatever of interest he may unearth in the archives. His articles on
Masonic subjects in the Christian Science Monitor attracted wide note, and
justly so, alike for their matter and manner, and we shall be very glad to
hear from him when he is ready to publish his studies. - The
Editor.)

MEMORIALS
TO GREAT MEN WHO WERE MASONS

BY BRO. GEO. W. BAIRD, P. G.
M., DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

In 1853, when the
subscriptions for the Washington Monument were waning, and the people were
becoming restive, Congress appropriated $50,000 for an equestrian Statue of
General Washington, and Brother Clark Mills, a local artist, was awarded the
contract. Mr. Mills enjoyed an excellent reputation as a sculptor.

It was decided to erect this bronze memorial in
the Circle at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue, New Hampshire Avenue
and twenty-second street and K street. This circle is one of the places which
the eccentric L'Enfant had designed for a little fortification, which he
thought would be necessary when mobs and riots were in operation. But it had
been turned into a Park, and in this centre the statue may be seen from many
directions.

The statue shows the General in his Continental
uniform, with a drawn sword in his hand, facing the east. The bust is a copy
of that of the famous Houdon, and is regarded as perfect. The pose of the
General and the apparent activity of the beautiful horse were highly eulogized
at the time.

The horse, of course, in an equestrian statue, is
a conspicuous part of the group: the animal appears as nature made him: his
limbs are not obscured by fashionable raiment, which future ages might not be
pleased with: the uniform of the Generals however, is a very beautiful one,
and one that Americans should never tire of looking upon; that of the
Continental Army.

This work of art was dedicated on the 22d of
February, 1860, by the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, with
Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 in attendance. Washington Commandery No. 1 was the
escorting body.

The Grand Master, George C. Whiting, after
executing the usual ancient rites, turned to the President of the United
States, Brother James B. Buchanan, Past Master of Lancaster Lodge No. 43 of
Pennsylvania, and said:

"Mr. President. This gavel, prepared expressly for
the purpose, was used by Washington, as President of the United States, and as
Grand Master of Freemasons pro tempore, in laying the corner stone of the
Capitol of the Nation, on the 18th of September, 1793, and I have now the
honor of requesting, in the name of the Fraternity, that you, his brother and
his successor, will likewise employ it in the crowning act of dedicating this
statue.”

The President of the United States, on receiving
the gavel from the Grand Masteir, made a beautiful dedicatory address.

The writer is probably one of the few Masons, now
living, who witnessed this historic dedication, and the recollection is one of
lasting pleasure.

----o----

WHAT IS
FAITH?

What is faith but risking all

To the realness of the call ?

Faith may never be to know -

It may always be to grow.

- E.G. Rockwell.

----o----

BURDENS

Not always do they rob life
of its charms,

At times they lend a glory
and a glow;

A woman with a baby in her
arms,

A pine tree bending heath a
weight of snow.

- A.D. Patterson.

THE
LIBRARY

"IN A NOOK
WITH A BOOK"

AN ATTIC
PHILOSOPHER

THREE or four Brethren
have asked why we
did not name "The Pleasures of Age," by Emile Souvestre, among the very best
books on old age. Because we feared that others might have as hard a time
finding it as we had years ago, when we came upon it in an old second-hand
book shop where we were wont to browse betimes in the times that come not
back. It is indeed a gracious book, sweet, meditative, and wise, one of the
few books that treat of the last scene of life without bitterness, which even
Cicero did not escape. Also, Souvestre did not know old age, save by
imaginative insight, for he died at the age of forty-eight when life was at
high noon.

Besides, we like his "Attic Philosopher" better,
the more so because we once had a prejudice against the book before we knew
it, thinking that it must be the musings of some thin, wan cynic, pinched by
poverty, and writing his bitter thoughts from an Attic. Imagine our surprise
and delight when we saw the book itself - coming as it did, on a day so dull
that if we had gone seining in the ocean of ideas we could hardly have caught
a minnow. Instead of a book of sharp cynicism and acid wit, we found one of
the wisest, sweetest, most wholesome books it has ever been our joy to meet.

The Philosopher in the Attic gives us his grave
and kindly wisdom in the form of a diary, or journal - less learned than Amiel,
but with equal observation and insight. He teaches virtue by ridiculing vice,
and such bitterness as he feels is clothed in a garb of mirth, and is soon
washed away by the waters of Marah. He sees the misery of the world without
despising it, and its cowardly tricks without hating it. He learns not to
judge by appearances; he shows the joys of the poor and the sadness of the
rich. He tells stories, reviews books, records gossip, paints landscapes,
studies human nature because he loves it; smokes, dreams, and remembers - and
through it all blows the sweet air of the country and the perfume of a simple
faith in God. Hear some of his sayings:

"Let a man learn to be at home in his own heart,
and he will surely learn how much there is to do at home."

"O Philosophers ! find us amusement without
brutality, and enjoyment without selfishness!"

"Ah! if men only knew in what a small dwelling joy
can live, and how little it costs to furnish it !"

"We award the palm to Charity, but let us give it
to Moderation - the great social virtue. Even when it does not create the
others, it stands instead of them."

"Trustfulness prevents sorrow, if not from coming,
at least from staying. I put my judgment in place of providence, and the happy
child is changed into an anxious man.

"Is it not true that beyond goodness, prudence
moderation, humility, and self-sacrifice itself, there is one great truth,
which alone can face misfortune? And that, if a man has need of virtues for
others, he has need of religion for himself ?"

Ay, here is meat for the mind, food for the soul,
and light along the path. Yet it is not a book of proverbs, but of vivid human
life from day to day, with its sorrows, its homely joys, its deep and quiet
consolations. There are the old fruit woman, the soldier who loved flowers,
the two sisters on their first trip to the country, the old veteran to whom
love of France was a kind of worship - with memories of old days an scenes far
off, and gentle thoughts of the dead who live in our hearts, and therefore
never die. It is a wise book, equally for what it remembers and for what it
forgets, giving alms to oblivion while laying up that treasure which neither
time nor death can rust. Truly, if one can have such a kind heart and such a
sweet faith, it matters little where he lives - whether in a Attic or in a
Palace - for he will be cleansed of envy of evil, of restless fret and fear,
finding God everywhere.

* * *

Speaking of best loved books, ye scribe may be
permitted to tell a story, while we chat together in the Library. Once on a
time he found himself lonely, ill, and far from home - having fallen
unconscious on the street of a strange city, where he was picked up by two
brother Masons and cared for till he was healed of sun-stroke. When able to be
about, he went for a walk, and, seeing the sign of a Book-shop, he ventured in
to see what he could find for the mending of his spirit. There, in a tiny case
of curious old books, he found a volume which proved to be one of the best
friends of his life. It was entitled "Some Fruits of Solitude," by William
Penn, and in his loneliness ye scribe sought to learn what solitude had taught
a great and wise man.

Courage, common sense, a resolute cheerfulness,
and, above all, a sense of being "never less alone than when alone" - such was
the message, perhaps one had better say medicine, of that gracious little
book. Later he found "More Fruits of Solitude," from the same pen, which, in
his opinion, are richer, juicer, and grown by a sunnier wall of experience.
They are two little baskets of ripe wisdom wherein, if a man will look, he
will find apples of gold - a blend of honest, homely shrewdness and heavenly
spirituality, qualities rare enough and still more rarely growing together.
Years afterward, in reading the Letters of Stevenson, he learned that Robert
Louis had much the same experience with the same little book in the old days
in San Francisco.

Why are not such books written now-a-days? It
would seem that we are so smitten with the curse of being busy - a kind of St.
Vitus' dance of doing things - until we are almost bankrupt in the real
business of living. Meditation is almost a lost art among us. We hardly know
how to be alone, much less to be quiet and think things through - or, better
still, to listen to those voices which will tell us, if we have ears to hear,
what life means. Penn was a Quaker, that is to say, a Quietist, and he has put
into simple words what he learned in the School of Silence. Hear him a moment:

"How many people come into, and go out of the
world, ignorant of themselves, and of the world they have lived in."

"Do good with what thou hast, or it will do thee
no good. Riches lie in bags; Happiness in content - which wealth can never
give."

"No religion is better than an unnatural one. To
be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious."

"They that love beyond the world cannot be
separated. Death cannot kill what never dies. Death is but crossing the world,
as friends do the seas."

"Humble, meek, merciful, just, and devout souls
are everywhere of one religion; and when death hath taken off the mask, they
will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them
strangers."

This last saying - a favorite with Lincoln - ye
scribe can never forget, and it expresses his real feeling in regard to
religion. If only this truth had been kept in mind and heart, how much bigotry
and bitterness would have been avoided - but, alas, so many liveries make men
strangers, even enemies. No part of the ministry of Masonry is more benign
than the way in which, by the fine art of friendship, it leads men to this
discovery made by Penn long ago; and so, happily, we do not have to wait for
Death to take off the mask to know and love our fellow men.

* * *

QUESTIONS

Dear Brother: - Nothing has been published in The
Builder more helpful to the average member of the Craft than the questions
compiled by the Cincinnati Masonic Study School. Lodges in this section are
some distance apart, and we have no Past Master's Societies or Research
Guilds, and it is hard for the less informed Brethren to get anything that
will create interest for more light. It is in appreciation of what the
Cincinnati School and the Research Society are doing, through The Builder,
that I make this expression. Yours fraternally. E. J. Matthiesen, La Cross,
Kan.

Many thanks for your words of good cheer. Others
have written letters of like tone, which confirm us in the belief that we have
found a method and a point of contact with the greatest of all problems before
this Society - to awaken the interest of Masons in the study of Masonry. We
are glad to announce that, when the series of questions on "The Builders" is
finished, other books will be taken up in the same manner, by the kindness and
industry of the Cincinnati School - for example, "The Story of Freemasonry,"
by W. G. Sibley, published by the Lion's Paw Club, Gallipolis, Ohio.

* * *

Will you be kind enough to tell me whether or not
the Emperor of Germany is a Mason? I have seen it stated both ways, even in
Masonic journals, and I am puzzled to know the truth. - J. L. B

No, Kaiser Wilhelm is not a Mason. The story
probably comes from the fact that every King of Prussia, since the time of
Frederick the Great, with the exception of Frederick William IV and the
present Emperor, were Masons. The only monarch in Europe associated with the
Craft, we believe, is the King of Sweden, who is Grand Master of Masons in
Sweden - the Crown Prince being Deputy Grand Master.

* * *

Please tell me the origin and meaning of the word
cabletow. Has it any other than a Masonic usage ? I have searched in vain for
any clear explanation of it. Perhaps others would also be interested in your
answer. - H.T.S.

Until recently the word cable-tow was of exclusive Masonic
usage, but the Standard Dictionary (1913) defines it as "a rope or line for
drawing or leading; in Freemasonry, symbolizing, in the second and third
degrees, the covenant by which Masons are bound." Just why it should thus be
limited to the second and third degrees, is strange. Mackey, in his
Encyclopedia, says the word is "purely Masonic" and that the German "Kabeltau"
is the
probable derivation. Lawrence, in his "Practical Masonic Lectures," says that
Mabel is a word from the Dutch, signifying a great rope, which, being fastened
to the anchor, holds the ship fast when she rides; and that Tow is a word from
the Saxon, which means to hale or draw, and is applied, nautically, to draw a
barge or ship along the water." (Lecture II) Albert Pike found the origin of
the word in the Hebrew "khabel," which meant rope, cord, cable attached to an
anchor, (Prov. 23:34) and that Tu or To as a suffix, meant "his" - that is,
"his anchor rope." In Ezk. 18: 12, 16 and 23:15, and in Job 22:6 the same "Mabel"
meant binding or pledge, and " to bind as with a pledge." And in Ezk. 18:7 is
the word "Khabel-to," meaning "his pledge." By the length of the cable-tow is
meant, so Pike held, "the scope and intent and spirit of one's pledge."

Such is the confusion with respect to the origin of the word,
and as to its symbolism the confusion is equally great. Pike seemed to hold
that it has no symbolical significance at all, the use to which it is intended
to be put in case of need divesting it of every semblence of a symbol. With
this Mackey agrees, remarking that it is used merely as a physical device for
controlling the initiate - which might conceivably be true in the first
degree, but is obviously an error in the references to it in the other
degrees. Lawrence held that the cable-tow is a symbol of the obligation of a
Mason, the Mystic Tie binding the initiate to God, to the Order, and to
Righteousness; a tie which both binds and draws, and which holds a man fast,
lest he drift like a ship at sea. Rowbottom, in his "Origin of Masonic
Ritual," gives the cable-tow as a symbol which teaches the candidate that he
is bound with a cord whose running noose of indigence and want, tightening
with unrelenting severity, will bring no less disaster to the careless and
indolent who try to evade the duties of their lives. Paton, in his
"Freemasonry, Its Symbolism," (Chap. XLV) insists that the cable-tow is a
simple and natural symbol of the tie which unites the Fraternity, and its use
may perhaps be referred to the figurative language in which the Lord speaks to
the Prophet
Hosea, when
remonstrating with guilty Ephraim: "I drew thee with the cords of a man, with
bonds of love." (Hosea 11:4)

So there, now, you have it all laid out, confusion
worse confounded as to both origin and meaning. We have our own views as to
the symbolism of the cable-tow, but before we give them we wish to hear from
others; and to that end we invite discussion. Let us hear from you, brethren

* * *

There is a word familiar to Masons often
translated, "What, the Builder!" and sometimes, "What, is it the Builder?" I
am not familiar with the Hebrew, but somehow this phrase never had any deep
meaning for me. Have you any suggestion in the matter? - T.S.M.

Albert Pike felt very much as you do about that
word, and he was wont to translate it "marrow-in-the-bone." At first sight
this seems no better than the accepted rendering, but hear now his explanation
of it. As "medulla" in Latin means marrow, the inner part, the quintessence;
and in Greek the brain was called the "muelos," or marrow, of the skull; and
as "Os," a bone, in Latia, meant also the kernel, Pike contended that the
Hebrew word in question had a similar meaning. "Marrow-in-the-bone" was used,
Pike held, as a trite phrase to conceal a deep truth, after the manner of
Pythagoras. Really the "marrow-in-the-bone" meant the Divine Word in the
Universe. For example, the true Word of a Mason was the Hebrew name of God -
which has been lost - the Pater Agnostos, the Unknown Father and invisible
God, incomprehensible by the human intellect, and therefore nameless. The
substituted word - substituted of necessity, since no one may name the
nameless One - is the symbol of, and represents "the first born of Creation,
the Eternal Word, or Logos, in whom shines the image of God, so far as man can
know Him, by whom all things were made." If you will think for a moment, you
will discover that this gives a very wonderful interpretation to the word we
use, especially in the scene in which it is used.

By an odd turn of things, five Brethren have asked
about the 47th Problem of Euclid. One is a young man who tells us, frankly,
that he does not know what the problem is and would like to have it stated.
Another wants to know why Pythagoras used it as a symbol, and what it
symbolized. Another asks if it may not have a practical meaning and use for
Masons today.

(1) The problem is as follows: - In every
right-angled triangle, the sum of the squares of the base and perpendicular is
equal to the square of the hypotenuse - that is, the line which connects the
ends of the other two sides. If, for instance, the base be three measures and
the perpendicular four, of the same length each, the hypotenuse will be five.
If it be not, the base and perpendicular form either an obtuse or acute angle,
and the triangle is not right-angled. If a Mason was carrying up the corner of
a building, and wished to know whether it was square, he measured three feet
from the corner one way and four the other. If the line drawn from the termini
was more or less than exactly five feet, he had not made a square corner. Such
was the problem and the practical use made of it by the old operative Masons.

(2) It is said that when Pythagoras discovered
this theorem he sacrificed a hundred oxen. Why? As a mathematical problem it
is of no more importance or interest than fifty others in Euclid; and of much
less than many of them. Pythagoras never styled other problems symbols, much
less as "a Great Symbol." Why did he use it as such? Certainly he did not
consider the figure, the right-angled triangle, as a figure, a symbol. No, its
symbolism was in the numbers three, four, five - especially three and four,
the sum of which is the always sacred number Seven. Why was seven sacred to
Pythagoras? Seven what? Perhaps the seven Divine potencies in the theology of
the Median Magi, under whom he studied in Babylon. Of the seven, three were
feminine and four masculine. As the three female powers were of the world of
Nature - in the theory of olden time - they were represented as a horizontal
line, or base, of the right-angled triangle, and the four male forces by which
Deity acts upon nature, were the perpendicular; and the hypotenuse represented
the Deity Himself, Ahura Mazda, containing in Himself the four male powers.

(3) So far Pythagoras. But what may the problem
mean to us? Such use of the problem evokes no profound meaning, much less
enthusiasm, in a modern man - save as it may bring to mind the familiar truth
of the Father-Mother God of all great religions. Therefore we beg to suggest a
very practical meaning and use of the problem, after this manner: - Just as
the old Masons used this problem to test whether their work was square, may we
not employ it for the more noble and glorious use of testing whether our lives
are square and true with the order of the world ? How may a man know that his
acts are right ? By the judgment of Conscience? But conscience is not
infallible. It tells us to do right, but it does not tell us what is right.
Let Conscience be one measure from the corner, what is the other measure, or
standard, by which the moral test may be made complete? Here again we pause
for discussion, and we shall be eager to hear the Brethren talk it over. It is
a problem of vital practical import, with which every man is confronted almost
every day - by what method can it be solved?